Numerous types of flooring have been used to create playing areas for such sports as basketball and tennis, as well as for other purposes. These flooring assemblies include concrete, asphalt, wood and other materials which have varying characteristics. For each type of flooring, there are corresponding advantages and disadvantages. For example, concrete flooring is easy to construct and provides long term wear. However, the concrete provides no “give” during use and many people are injured each year during sporting events due to falls and other mishaps. Wood floors, such as are used for many basketball courts, have an appropriate amount of give to avoid such injuries. The wood floors, however, are expensive to install and require continued maintenance to keep them in good condition.
Due to these concerns, the use of modular flooring assemblies made of synthetic materials has grown in popularity. The synthetic floors are advantageous for several reasons. A first reason for the flooring assemblies' popularity is that they are typically formed of materials which are generally inexpensive and lightweight. If a tile is damaged it may easily be replaced. If the flooring needs to be temporarily removed, the individual tiles making up the floor can easily be detached, relocated, and then reattached to form a new floor in another location. Examples of modular flooring assemblies include U.S. Pat. Nos. Des. 274,588; 3,438,312; 3,909,996; 4,436,799; 4,008,548; 4,167,599; 4,226,064 and 255,744.
A second reason for the popularity of the flooring assemblies is that the durable plastics from which they are formed are long lasting. Unlike other long lasting alternatives, such as asphalt and concrete, the material is generally better at absorbing impacts, and there is less risk of injury if a person falls on the plastic material, as opposed to concrete or asphalt. The connections for the modular flooring assembly can even be specially engineered to absorb lateral force to avoid injuries, as is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,930,286. Additionally, the flooring assemblies generally require little maintenance as compared to other flooring, such as wood.
One problem with synthetic flooring involves the time consuming nature of installation. Typically, each of the tiles will include several couplings on each attachment side of the tiles. The couplings are typically small and require careful alignment and precise positioning to make proper attachment. When installing a large floor covering with hundreds, and even thousands, of tiles, coupling each of the tiles is long and laborious task. The numerous amounts of couplings for each of the tiles often results in the installer miss-attaching some of the couplings due to human error and fatigue. Further, the miss-attached couplings are often not readily identifiable.
In addition, flooring assemblies may be formed by attaching multiple tiles to form several columns, which can be rolled up for easy storage. These columns can then be unrolled in side-by-side proximity and attached to form a tile array. It is often difficult for the installer to identify, properly align and mate the proper corresponding tiles, resulting in offsetting the couplings and tiles between adjacent columns. Further, tiles of one column may become spaced slightly different with respect to the tiles in another column, resulting in different lengths in the columns and miss-alignment of the couplings between the adjacent columns. As a result, proper interconnection of the couplings of the tiles is very time consuming.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to provide a flooring tile that minimizes the laborious task of coupling large amounts of tiles to form a floor covering. It would also be advantageous to provide a flooring tile with couplings that can be readily identified for proper alignment and can be readily attached to simplify the task of forming the floor covering.